Red Dead Retribution
by EscapeArtist25
Summary: Story picks up at the end of the main mission storyline in the game. Jack heads off to kill Edgar Ross, but once the deed is done, he discovers that it doesn't give him peace at all. He must find another way to heal.


As a child, my mission was to grow up. I learned to read and write, something that not every child, or man or woman, is able to do. I had everything I needed. I don't remember much, but I know we were really well-to-do when I was young. Pa was in a gang that provided us every luxury we could dream of, but I could see the worry on Ma's face everytime she saw him leave. Eventually, my folks began getting older, and my Pa involved himself less and less in the gang, and once my baby sister died of an illness, he quit his gang altogether and moved us to Beecher's Hope.

They settled down and started farming, I think I was about nine at the time. To supplement our food source during drought or crop failures, Pa would hunt meat in the nearby forest called Tall Trees. Eventually though, Pa's past would catch up with him and we all would suffer. On one of his hunting trips, government agents nabbed Ma and I and took us with them, providing everything we need, but as prisoners. They used Pa's heartbreak to use him to run their missions for them, feed them information, and hunt down his old gang members. We were teased over and over again by guards who told us that Pa wouldn't live long enough to kill or capture every member of his previous gang. Against all odds, he came back to us. But our peace was short lived.

My mission while Pa was with us was to hunt, fish, skin meat, and trade. Pa also taught me how to work with wood and farm, as well as tame horses and train cattle and sheep dogs. I thought his goal was to spend time with me to make up for all those lost years, and while that might partly be true, I think on some level he knew that his freedom would end, and the government would hunt him down. He wanted Ma to be taken care of, and he wanted me to know what I needed to know in order to take care of Ma and any future family I may have.

Here we are today. I stand at the foot of Pa's grave, and I just buried my Ma by his side. Uncle died before Pa, and I have no other family. I am all alone in this wild wilderness. What purpose is there for me to remain here on this farm? The sadness and loneliness eats away at me and I feel I have no life purpose. I will change that, though. Because I have a new mission. I want to make them pay for what they did to my family. The agent that I need to hunt down is Edgar Ross. Only by killing him can I begin to heal.

I pack everything I will need, just enough to get by, and ride my horse up on top of the hill. Before leaving my farm and my home, I look back once more, and I hope it will be here when I get back, which may be in weeks, or could be in years. I don't know where the dusty road ahead will take me.

My first stop is Blackwater because it is one of the biggest cities in the whole of Texas, and I am bound to run into a government agent eventually. I get there by nightfall and walk into the saloon and hotel, and ask for a room. I walk past three drunks and two prostitutes before reaching my room, and my eyes close as soon as they hit the pillow.

The next morning I find a man in a suit outside a government office and I make myself out to be like an old friend of Edgar Ross, and the fool divulges everything he knows about Ross to me without worry. I find out that he retired a year ago, to a small cabin on the banks of a river. It takes me a couple of days to get there, but I finally reach the top of a hill surrounding the river valley. Using my binoculars, I spot a small house, a single house, on the banks of the river, and I know he must be there. I decide that it may be best to attack at night, so I set up a campfire and try to sleep for awhile. When I wake up, it is dusk, and I begin to head down. I hitch my horse to a tree a few hundred yards from the house and approach on foot so as not to alarm Ross or his family. I have no desire to harm his family, so I must find a way to draw him out.

But when I reach the house, a single, elderly woman greets me. I tell her I've got an important letter for her husband, and she seems to believe I am sincere, so she tells me he's fishing downriver with his brother. Eventually, I find his brother and let him alone. I find Ross off a mile or so downriver from his brother, all alone, and I approach him. Though he doesn't recognize me at first, eventually he sees the resemblance to my father and assumes I must be Jack Marston. I kill him in a duel, leaving his body by the river, which is now carrying his blood towards the ocean.

I find a quiet place to sit, and I watch him for awhile. I watch the life leave him, and the blood drain, and the body turn three different colors. I sit and I wait for my retribution. I wait for my mind and heart and soul to feel at peace once again. But that feeling never comes. Killing the man who took away my father and hurt my family for years, doesn't make me feel better. Not one bit. I let tears fall from my eyes as I walk back towards my horse, as I come to terms with the fact that I may always be in pain, and I will forever be a murderer. Justified or not, I just killed my first man. I feel no remorse for Edgar Ross, just a vague sense of emptiness in my heart that his death did not fill.

Around midnight I reach his widows home once again, and I leave a letter for her:

" _Dear Mrs. Ross, I regret to inform you that your husband, Edgar, will not be returning home as he tragically died while fishing. I am certain that his brother will be along shortly to share the news. Inside the contents of this envelope I have left two hundred American dollars. It won't bring him back, but I certainly hope it will be of some use to you in the coming years."_

I am not a monster, and I do feel horrible for Mrs. Ross. Had I known that killing Edgar would not give me peace, I may not have killed him, but I cannot take back what I have done, and now along with my loneliness, I carry guilt. Suddenly the alcohol and prostitutes of Blackwater seem like a welcome escape from this hell.


End file.
